Cuba is known for having relatively large stretches of pristine mangrove forests and undisturbed coral reefs, beaches, and sea grass marshes. Satellite photo by NASA Earth observatory.

Wednesday, 5 September 2012

Field of Nightmares

Ottawa
continues to embrace the widespread use of Roundup on Canadian farms by letting
corporate seduction trump scientific evidence.

by Larry
Powell

A crop-duster sprays a GMO crop in

western MB. Larry Powell PinP photo.

In its quest to dominate the planet's agricultural biotechnology sector, Monsanto's business model has produced significant collateral damage.

Generations of
farming families in South America, India and other robustly developing regions
have been devastated by the US-based multinational’s product line, namely its
flagship herbicide Roundup and the patented seeds that go with it. In the
1970s, the company began genetically modifying canola, and they’ve since created
their own patented versions of soybeans, corn, cotton and a range of other
crops. The havoc wreaked by Monsanto’s remarkable growth in the interim
includes widespread claims of pollution, illegal activity and damage to health
and livelihoods, as well as a systematic effort to crush detractors and
monopolize new markets with its financial heft.

Saskatchewan
canola grower Percy Schmeiser famously battled Monsanto in the late 90s over
patent infringement and crop contamination, which he alleged was the result of
pollen drift. Canada’s Supreme Court ultimately ruled against Schmeiser,
rejecting his argument that wind transmission – and not his own action – caused
the unauthorized spread of Monsanto’s seed. But his story and the experiences
of other North American farmers have anchored whistle-blowing media coverage,
including Eric Schlosser’s bestselling book Fast Food Nation and documentary
films such as David Versus Monsanto, The Corporation and Food, Inc.

While
debate about the value and dangers of genetic engineering has intensified,
Canada’s government has followed many other Western counterparts by embracing
Roundup. Up against the overwhelming din of product promotion, citizens’ and
critics’ concerns remain understated. Yet with the health and wellbeing of
crops, wildlife, livestock and people at stake, and a festering body of
evidence pointing to the pitfalls of allowing Monsanto greater market share, an
important question begs a response: Why is Ottawa allowing corporate seduction
to trump scientific evidence?Clearly
Monsanto’s marketing strategy has been effective. Newspapers, radio, TV and
online ads have long trumpeted Roundup’s ability to help farmers produce more
food and make more money. Monsanto has successfully positioned itself as a
“partner” in helping farmers to achieve truly “sustainable agriculture” by
using less fuel and water, and significantly reducing their greenhouse gas
emissions. “By 2050, the population is expected to reach nine billion,” one
online ad proclaims, so “farmers will need to produce more food in the next 40
years than they have in the past 10,000 years combined.”

Seed pods in a GM canola field. PinP photoIn
tandem with this heady positioning, Roundup’s growth prospects seem unstoppable.
Take canola, for example. The popular oilseed crop is used widely in such
products as margarine, and is by far the largest genetically modified crop in
Canada, surpassing wheat in dollar value last year. (Only Prince Edward Island
grows non-GMO canola for niche markets in Japan.) The Canola Council of Canada,
which represents producers, researchers and marketers, unveiled ambitious plans
a few years ago to boost annual canola production by a whopping 65 per cent by
2015.

Consequently,
organic canola has effectively disappeared on the prairies. According to the
Saskatchewan Organic Directorate, this was due to rampant contamination of seed
stock and organic fields by unwanted GMO plants, otherwise known as pollen
drift.

As
many responsible agriculture advocates have feared, Canada may also soon
approve Roundup Ready alfalfa. (Canadian regulators have declared it safe,
although the seed cannot be sold here – yet.) Advocates warn that this would be
a huge mistake. They say farmers are happy with the value and performance of
their existing crop, which is used as a high-protein feed for livestock and a
soil-enriching tool for organic growers. They’re afraid of facing the same fate
as organic canola growers.

Roundup’s
pervasiveness relies on skillfully crafted strategies to build goodwill at the
community level, especially in schools. Since 1991, the Monsanto Fund
Opportunity Scholarship program has awarded more than $1-million to thousands of
grade 12 graduates from Canadian farm families. The money helps pay for their
post-secondary education in agriculture or a related field. Likewise, the
corporation is a high-profile supporter of the Made in Manitoba Breakfast
Program, organized by a non-profit charity that travels around the province,
feeding students hot breakfasts and helping them “explore the agriculture
industry and learn where their food comes from.”

Monsanto
also has the ready ear of federal lawmakers. Leading up to Parliament’s
February 2011 defeat of Bill C-474 (which called for more scrutiny of GMO crops
for foreign export), government officials held 50 private meetings with biotech
industry executives. Monsanto took a lead role in those discussions. Meanwhile,
there has been a gradual accumulation of scientific research that undercuts the
safety of glyphosate – the common, active ingredient in Roundup, and the 200
similar formulations that are sold under different brand names.

Many
authors have reported significant declines in amphibian populations in several
areas during the past 30 years. In 2005, University of Pittsburgh researcher
Rick Relyea blamed Roundup directly, concluding that it “can cause extremely
high rates of mortality to amphibians that could lead to population declines.”
Relyea’s laboratory work had already indicated the herbicide might be highly
lethal to North American tadpoles, so he exposed three frog species (toad, tree
and leopard) to Roundup outdoors, in “more natural conditions.” After a single
day, Roundup had killed up to 86 per cent of the juveniles and, in three weeks,
up to 100 per cent of the tadpoles.

The
Ontario Farm Family Health Study had previously surveyed nearly 4000 pregnant
women exposed to a variety of farm chemicals(including glyphosate) while
milking cows, cultivating or seeding fields, and in some cases helping their
partners mix and apply pesticides. The study noted that “among older women
(over 34) exposed to glyphosate, the risk [of miscarriage] was three times that
for women of the same age who were not exposed to this active ingredient.”

A
French molecular biologist, Gilles-Eric Séralini, corroborated these findings
in 2009. He demonstrated that glyphosate was lethal to three different kinds of
human cells (umbilical, embryonic and placental) at just a fraction of the
concentrations used in agriculture. Moreover, Séralini was surprised to
discover that the Roundup mixture was consistently twice as deadly as
glyphosate alone. One of Roundup’s ingredients, polyoxyethylene tallow amine
(POEA), has also been clinically shown to cause high mortality in fish and
amphibians, although Séralini indicated that regulators continue to legally
classify POEA as “inert.” Extensive research by Agriculture Canada, published
in 2009, showed that glyphosate was also the most significant agronomic factor
in incidences of Fusarium head blight (FHB) and Common root rot (CRR) in wheat
and barley crops. Both FHB and CRR are considered serious cereal crop diseases
in places like Eastern Saskatchewan (where the trials were conducted). Fusarium
toxins have been known to cause livestock to vomit and refuse food, and their
fungi create more severe diseases for other crops. While tillage practices were
also a contributing factor, the research concludes that “previous glyphosate
use was consistently associated with higher FHB levels” and “significantly
increased” the risk of plant diseases.

“Glyphosate
is a very strong, somewhat selective antibiotic –and patented as such,”
explains Don Huber, professor emeritus of plant pathology at Purdue University.
“It is toxic to beneficial intestinal microorganisms that prevent botulism and
diarrhea, so we have a 400 per cent increase in C. difficile diarrhea since
2000, as well as escalating chronic fatigue syndrome, inflammatory bowel
disease, gluten intolerance and celiac disease, and so on. It is also toxic to
many essential soil microorganisms involved in natural disease control,
nutrient availability, residue decomposition and synergistic interactions such
as nitrogen fixation.”

There
is also the emerging reality of “super weeds.” More than 20 resilient species
of weed have developed resistance to glyphosate due to overuse, including
Kochia weed in Alberta and Canada fleabane at nearly 80 sites in Ontario.

A
prime example of a field where unwanted "volunteer" canola (yellow),
has invaded a field of flax, in eastern SK. (Larry Powell - P in P photo)

Ironically, canola has become an unwanted weed in other crop fields. Monsanto
and other agribusinesses treat this as a business opportunity, selling even
more potent chemicals to “burn down” the super weeds.

Curiously, none of this
evidence seems to disturb Canada’s policy makers. Health Canada, which
regulates pesticide management, has confirmed its awareness of the research
summarized by this article, but a government official reported (via emails to
the author) that “It did not raise immediate risk concerns that would have
triggered regulatory action.”

Furthermore,
in December 2011, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) approved Roundup
for yet another use – on mustard seed crops. PMRA’s ruling states, “The
evaluation of this glyphosate application indicated that the end-use product
has merit and value and the human health and environmental risks associated with
the new uses are acceptable.”

A collection depot for pesticide containers. P in P photo.Meanwhile,
even the Federal Court of Canada felt it necessary to ask the federal
government to justify its position on glyphosate. In 2009, Minister of Health
Leona Aglukkaq refused a request by a BC-based environmental activist named
Josette Wier for a “special review” into the safety of glyphosate. Wier had
become concerned that glyphosate-based herbicides – which logging companies
spray on forests near her home before replanting – were harmful to human health
and the environment. Instead, the minister opted for a routine, longer-range
re-evaluation, which began two years later and won’t be completed for about
another year.

Last
November, the Federal Court sided with Wier and ruled that more research was
needed, specifically to determine whether herbicides were harming frogs and
salamanders. The court ordered Minister Aglukkaq to “reconsider” her refusal.
Despite this, Aglukkaq has declined to give the court a definitive
response. Wier calls the court’s request a “small victory, but a victory,
nevertheless,” and refuses to accept a tepid response as defeat. “I truly feel
that I am doing the job of government, and that government has become the
enemy,” she says. “Scientific facts mean nothing, as [government is] so
embedded with industry. Monsanto, Dow Chemicals … are so powerful. What is left
is this awful job [of] going through the court and wasting enormous amounts of
time and money … what counts is to keep the flow going.”

Earth
Open Source, an international team of concerned researchers, echoes this
sentiment in its 2011 report, Roundup and Birth Defects: Is the Public Being
Kept in the Dark?
They concur that citizens can’t rely on government and industry to protect them
from the dangers of products like Roundup. In addition to simply avoiding use
of and exposure to herbicides, the report suggests lobbying local authorities,
farmers and other stakeholders to disclose what herbicides they are spraying
(and when) and to encourage them to switch to less toxic methods.

This
may seem deceptively straightforward, or even too tame a response. But given
the entrenched complexity of the current situation, getting back to basics is
perhaps the only meaningful solution.

Kate
Storey, a former Green Party candidate and an organic producer of grain, beef
and eggs near Grandview, Manitoba, sees the responsibility for creating a new
system as something that farmers can control. “Roundup is not necessary in the
production of food,” she says. “Organic farmers have been producing
high-yielding crops for years without the use of any herbicides at all. A few
non-organic farmers are starting to adopt some of those same techniques.” And
while those techniques won’t spread quite as naturally as pollen, change must
take root with farmers first. If we’re ever going to benefit from a Roundup
detox, it certainly won’t be our government that leads the way.

Larry
Powell is a journalist specializing in agriculture and the environment.

To
get involved in the GMO alfalfa debate or in other anti-GMO campaigns, visit
the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network at cban.ca.This
November, Californians will vote on whether or not to require labels on all GMO
foods, a practice that has been deployed in Europe and China, and which India
will adopt in January 2013. Track both sides of the California debate at carighttoknow.org and stopcostlyfoodlabeling.com.

Sidebar:
The Flip Side of the Corn - by Eric Rumble, Editor, Alternatives.

FOR MOST LAYPEOPLE, the debate over glyphosate’s safety becomes
muddled by contradictory reportage and research results. In contrast to the
evidence collected here, a recent report from the Journal of Toxicology and
Environmental Health
(“Developmental and reproductive outcomes in Humans and Animals after
Glyphosate Exposure: A Critical Analysis,” Williams, et al.) concludes that
“the available literature shows no solid evidence linking glyphosate exposure
to adverse developmental or reproductive effects at environmentally realistic
exposure concentrations.”

The
authors state that glyphosate controls unwanted vegetation because it inhibits
an enzyme used to synthesize several essential aromatic amino acids, but
“because the shikimate pathway is not shared by members of the animal kingdom,
glyphosate is not expected to adversely affect humans and other mammals under
normal use conditions.” The report, funded by Monsanto and aided by the company’s
“unpublished glyphosate and surfactant toxicity study reports,” goes on to
dissect a range of safety claims against Roundup and its main active
ingredient. For example, the authors refute that glyphosate is an endocrine
disruptor by characterizing a dozen studies from between 1997 and 2010 as
“flawed from the outset,” largely because of low concentrations of surfactants
and detergents evident in those studies.

Regarding
the Ontario Farm Family Health Study in particular, Williams, et al. argue that
the data are invalid because of recall bias and “substantial exposure
misclassification.” For instance, the authors observe that “fathers of
pregnancies with adverse outcomes are more likely to recall pesticide use
during the preconception period than fathers of pregnancies with normal
outcomes.”

While both
sides of the debate tend to position their science as definitive, the
prevailing issue is that we are wagering our collective health on outcomes we
cannot definitively predict. We don’t know the implications of our food systems
becoming stressed and modified by new ingredients, technologies and demands.
The intention of research is to refine how we cope with these challenges, not
cancel out knowledge that contradicts vested interests. When it comes to
glyphosate, it’s clear that what we need most is a transparent cost-benefit
analysis that incorporates precaution.

====

This
peer-reviewed article now appears in the journal “Alternatives – Canada’s
Environment Magazine” both in print form, at newsstands and online here.

Posted on ALLVOICES By scotinfrance Robert Myles | 7 months agoAfter reading this I'm left wondering why anyone would ever want to use Roundup/Glyphosates again. The downside risks to wildlife and plant life, not to mention human health, far outweigh any perceived benefit in relation to crop yields.